Midsummer
by Imbelossien
Summary: [ KakaIru ]The most beautiful boy I touched ran away from me. A question of childhood, and mirroring.
1. Strangers in high noon

**MIDSUMMER**

- no spoilers, if you know the basic characters and their basic background stories. Naruto and all characters from the Naruverse belong to Kishimoto Masashi, whose crazy mind I wish I owned, effectively making the characters mine. Sadly, nothing here but several pets and my laptop.

- this contains implied yaoi, which means two guys paired up with each other. While there isn't any overt action, the implications are clear, and are intended, to make the story work. Please do us both a favor and NOT read if you're squeamish with this.

* * *

.

.The most beautiful boy I  
Touched ran away from me:  
and all I could do was pick up the grains  
of sand by where his feet were, hoping  
these kept bits of him, enough of his  
matter to be changed somehow.  
- Cathy Candano, "The Most Beautiful Boy I Touched Ran Away from Me"

* * *

Summer gave Konoha its name.

The countryside burst with green life, the last traces of snow having melted away. If one climbed the hills that bordered the village, all one could see for miles around was one vast, lush carpet of leaves. Canopies of leaves in varying hues of green layered one over the other in an almost seamless interweaving of branches and mossed-over rock that, to the untrained eye, the subtle village markers remained invisible.

Beneath the leafy awnings, genin teams practiced their jutsu and sparred with each other, flitting through clearings, disappearing again in the sunny haze. Jounin-sensei carefully kept to the shade, while charges exploded in smoke, multiplied to three times their number, dodged blunt sparring-kunai.

In the Academy, shinobi schoolchildren dozed on their desks, lessons forgotten. Chuunin teachers tried in vain to reign in the day's exercise, but most had given it up as well, content to join in the communal dream of watermelons and ice candy. End-of-summer exams were a long way away, anyway, and there was plenty of time in between for sojourns to the creek, iced candy, and petty races to the top of Niidaime's head.

The scarred little boy stifled a yawn in his seat. He had to be extra careful not to be caught dozing again, as the irritatingly watchful Nara-sensei had placed him in what they all called the Dead Zone—the four seats smack in the middle of the front row, in the sensei's direct line of sight. Mess up in the Dead Zone, and straight to four-hours' worth of after-school detention one went. 

How troublesome. 

It was useless, however. Even the teacher's strict voice gave way to listless droning in the middle of the third chapter ("There are several ways to tell whether your opponent belongs to a shinobi village or not. Likewise, there are several non-village clan crests—").

Outside, not a cloud dotted the sky. It was as blue as the hills were green. Hearing that was heightened by the stillness of air made out the rush of water along the river that ran through the village. Niidaime stared out from his rocky height, much put-upon by the heat.

Lassitude was a welcome temptation, even for ninja.

"Alright. You brats. You better make sure you do the whole of pages fifty-four and fifty-seven right down to sixty-two," their teacher snarled half-heartedly, snapping the book shut. Twenty-two suddenly-energized students yelled in glee and streamed out of the door.

The scarred little boy was first to dash outside with his schoolmates, grateful for the reprieve. It was just a little before noon; there was plenty of time in between for play, before he needed to be home to assist with dinner.

Summer danced in the boy's veins, and it caught on from one child to the next like a bushfire so that, bursting out of the Academy in a riotous crowd of laughter, the whole school stared out of their classroom windows, quite alarmed and curious.

"Iruka-kun, let's head over to Catfish Bend!"

"Betcha can't catch me!"

"Betcha I can!"

"I'll beat all of you losers to the creek!"

Twelve shinobi children raced down the dusty road, screaming and laughing in the still noontime heat.

It was a beautiful day. 

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He had run all day and all night, and fatigue was an invisible weight clamped onto every pore of his too-young body. It was the biggest burden of all, and it surpassed even the troublesome weight of the blood-soaked vest (it was the smallest they could procure for him, and yet it was terribly loose), and the scrolls he had strapped on his back.

The heat hadn't helped; once in a while he was forced to stop and catch his breath, to drink a little of the bitter water from his near-empty canteen. As it was he had stopped bothering to replace his facemask; it was a waste of effort, and it didn't alleviate his discomfort one bit.

He estimated an entire two days' worth of travel between him and the remnants of his team; southwest to the Wind Country was where his mission took him, into the arid flatlands that bordered both countries.

They had been ambushed just as they were about to exit the scene, all because he had underestimated the genjutsu that surrounded the lone sentry, giving her enough time to call her comrades to her aid.

"Go on ahead of us," his team leader had whispered urgently, strapping the scrolls onto his back tightly. "They will not think to chase a villager child in the night. Hold up the illusion for as long as you can manage. We'll meet you in the village."

It was his fault, after all, and how he had wished he had some means of natural detection when it came to telling apart cleverly constructed genjutsu.

It had been a long, hard run, and the illusion his team leader had cast on him began to steadily fade as his stamina gradually wore off. But it was fine; he was safely inside the borders of Fire Country, and remained only a small distance away from the village. Even in the harsh daylight, it was difficult to tell just where the woodlands merged with the bustling village.

By the time he was two kilometers away from the walls of Konoha, he had slowed down to a trudge. Heat exhaustion, chakra depletion, and fatigue finally took its toll on him, so that he had to rest, even for just a bit, if only to regain his composure.

He was badly shaking, he realized with mild surprise, as he put down his scroll-filled rucksack. He watched his half-gloved hands, as pale fingers grimy with dirt and blood that wasn't his own (or was it?) twitched sporadically, stilling only when chakra was applied.

_ I'm more tired than I thought._

Nobody could begrudge him. It was his first Special B mission as a chuunin, and he was the youngest in the team. For all the genius he possessed he was still easily the most inexperienced, but age difference and rank had made him haughty.

_ "A shinobi must never show emotion. He is a tool, and his duty is to his village. The mission must be accomplished."_

The three that had pursued him had been genin. He had not known of course, until he had strangled the last of them to death, pushing the flailing body into the unsteady sand. In the desperate attempt to breathe, the boy had ripped off his headcloak, and in the dull luminance of moonshine, child's eyes stared back at him with a fear he could not name.

_ "In a mission, all ninja are equal. One who wears the forehead protector is ready to die for one's village if necessary." _

His very first teacher had taught him that, after all. Why indeed, would killing a man be so much different from killing that boy? He had stabbed his first full-grown opponent (four times his small height) in the Forest of Death when he took the exams two years ago. There were plenty of men and women, since then, in between that unfortunate Taki examinee and the Suna child for him to count.

_ "And there are several ways to tell what village your opponent belongs to."_

They probably thought he looked suspicious running away from the commotion like that, and a distracted jounin-sensei probably sent his three charges to investigate.

When he reached down to splash his face with cool river water, he started. For a bizarre moment it seemed as if Sakumo-sama himself was reaching out to him from under the water, mirroring his movement.

Only this alternate "Sakumo-sama" had wide eyes, a blood-splattered face, and very unsteady hands. The real Sakumo-sama never had unsteady hands, and his reflection scowled at him disapprovingly.

"Stop that nonsense, Kakashi," he murmured, before he caught himself.

Well. That was what the man always said.

The sun rode high in the noontime sky, and he could hear familiar sounds carrying in the air—the shrill whistle of the Inuzuka dog trainers, the faraway call of some highly irritated Jounin teacher, leaves whipping in some tree-jumping nin's wake.

_I am…sure…that the rest will follow._

What was important was that he had the scrolls, and the mission was a success. His team leader had told him to go on ahead. What did it matter that the Suna child had stared at him as if seeing something terrifying?

He closed his eyes, willed his hands to stop shaking, and for his disciplined thoughts to stop eroding like loose sand afoot. He was at the end of his strength, but he would deliver the scrolls to the shinobi-in-charge, and he would—

"Are… are you okay?"

He could not hear anything except for the turbulent silence ringing in his ears, and the imaginary sound of sand rushing in to fill an empty space. The second call came with touch, and was a little louder than the first.

"Hey…? Are you… okay?"

Fingers on his shoulders, so light that he would have brushed them away. The world stilled. Slowly, he lifted his head, and stared wanly at the scarred little boy who stood, shocked and staring, a small distance away.

The younger boy gasped lightly, and quickly retracted his hand, but didn't move away. He was staring openly at the seated chuunin boy, in a mixture of disbelief, and amazement. 

Genin would have reacted quickly after the initial shock; a drawn kunai, perhaps, was instinctive. He could have not been more than perhaps three years younger at most, an Academy student, from his general reaction, and the frozen, blatant stare. Class probably dismissed early, in favor of the splendid weather.

_The weather is splendid,_ Kakashi thought, as if noticing for the first time.

He thought he could smell summer emanating from the other boy (impossible as it seemed when he thought about it)—watermelons, mint on crushed ice, textbook pages—and it was such a strong, nostalgic scent, that it almost made his exhausted, sleepless senses reel.

Overhead a messenger bird called, but Kakashi did not hear. Sunlight streamed in through the leafy canopy, dappling in the grass around them.

They both stood frozen, staring at each other. The boy, transfixed at the sight of so much blood stark on pale skin, splattered all over a mostly-torn chuunin vest; Kakashi, in his daze, hypnotized by the play of light dancing on the other boy's skin and eyes.

He was close enough to see the slight shiver that wracked the other's frame, as if chilled. He was close enough to observe the thin, pale scar running horizontal across the boy's nose. He was close enough to maybe reach out, and place a weary hand on the other boy's shoulder, grateful that it was someone from his own village –

And then, all of a sudden, whatever spell held the universe in motionless balance snapped at that moment. With a sharp breath the ponytailed boy blinked, backed away shakily, and dashed away, tripping once, twice, running still.

"Wait—" Kakashi began, intending to pursue the boy and clarify matters. But the sudden motion of standing up left him dizzy, and vertigo compounded with three days' worth of exhaustion buckled his knees, and dimmed his sight.

He thought he heard something thump against the ground, and wondered why he felt loose gravel pressed against his cheek.

The messenger bird circled once, before crying out once again.

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It was sunset, and the bloody golden of it spilled across the room from the half-closed hospital blinds.

He could barely see clearly; as it was, the ceiling above him, etched with the kanji sequences for healing, swam in blurry haze. A small ache when he flexed a hand told him that an IV needle was taped to his wrist, replenishing his much-dehydrated body.

"You're awake, finally."

Kakashi barely had strength enough to turn his head. His eyes lit up when he thought he saw a familiar figure leaning over his bed, but closed in defeat when he realized the presence wasn't familiar.

It was a jounin he had seen his father talk to sometimes, but it wasn't his father. The crest of Konoha glinted across the polished forehead protector.

"Sakumo-san told me to watch out for you," the pleasant jounin said, as if knowing perfectly well what he was thinking, "He's just left, you see, for what promises to be a long one."

"Scro—" he began, remembering his mission, wondering where on earth they could have been, if they had been taken.

The blonde jounin shook his head. "You're clearly very lucky. Hastily-bandaged wounds, stamina almost next to nothing, no wonder you passed out. You even still had that faint genjutsu on you. Thankfully several Uchiha children were practicing in a grove nearby, and carried you to the village." Blue eyes glinted. "The scrolls are safely with Hokage-sama. Very, very good work, Hatake-kun."

"Gen…jutsu?"

The blonde jounin nodded once, and moved away to stare outside the window. "You were still clinging to it unconsciously, so to speak, which was probably why you got depleted so quickly."

_Oh. So that was why_. The image of his team leader casting one last genjutsu over him before sending him off flashed in his mind's eye. He squinted at the blonde jounin by his bedside.

"The team? Have they returned? I promised I'd regroup with them."

The jounin turned to look at him squarely, a kind of sadness apparent in his face. "I'm afraid they didn't make it. Two miles into the border of Fire country, two chuunin bodies and a jounin were recovered by our Hunter nin."

Kakashi looked at his needle hand, resting and still on the blanket by his side. It twitched in his scrutiny, once, a passing shiver. He remembered the boy he met by the river.

"Admittedly, the sentries were alerted because some kid was yelling about a dead nin discovered so close to the village perimeter. Of course, everyone thought it was the work of a Sand spy. Even unconscious, you were still hanging on to the genjutsu, faint as it was, that perhaps genin could easily see through it. Which was dangerous in your state, had the Uchiha not found you."

The blonde jounin circled the bed and nodded down at him. "Try to get some rest, Hatake-kun. You're overworked, and your body needs all the rest it can get." So saying, the jounin walked out of the door, clicking it shut behind him.

Kakashi remained awake, watching as the tree outside his window cast strange, dancing shapes in the ceiling of his room. In the vivid light, leaf-shadow and kanji danced like tongues of fire at the tail-end of a Katon; danced like sun-mottled water, and the flash of wide, summer-lit brown eyes.

The boy had not recognized him. Certainly not as a fellow shinobi; perhaps the terror was what glued the other child to the spot, frozen and shivering in the heat of midsummer, before he turned to run away. There were several ways to identify an opponent, after all, and unskilled as the scarred boy probably was with genjutsu, he still would have looked to all the world like a runaway Suna child.

Kakashi would have willed himself to sleep anytime he wished. But already something that felt like sand began a slow burning behind his lids, and all he could hear was his breathing, sharp as a small bird's call.

* * *

**Author's notes: **  
This one was inspired by a poem a friend and sempai wrote, which I have quoted at the very beginning of the story. The image of Ko!Iruka running away from a bloodied Kakashi was too strong to resist, and it has been playing over and over in my head all the time. Erm, right. Mail me if anyone wants the full poem, as I don't want to risk any sort of new rule infringement from the staff.

(1) Kakashi was still hanging on to the genjutsu his team leader cast on him. It's very faint now that he's all worn out, but Iruka, being an Academy student, still can't properly tell. That's why Kakashi sees himself in the water reflection, whereas Iruka still saw him as a bloodied Sand kid.

(2) Again, I lament the fact that, due to the withholding of Yondaime's name, you can describe him only in so many ways. "Daddy" also works, in different contexts, of course. :D

(3) Age-wise, I'm conforming to the newest character guidebook, which says that Kakashi is three or so years older than Iruka. Here, he would therefore be 8 years old, and Iruka 5. The reason why this is the first time Kakashi is sent to a Special B (mixed-rank assignment) mission is because of his physiological build-up; at 6 years old, he may be a genius, but his body, particularly his "inner body" is still that of a child's, and therefore still unfit for long, drawn-out missions. 

Inspired by the imagery of Cathy Candano's poem, "The Most Beautiful Boy...", published in the school folio, No.1 vol. 52, pgs 7-8. She's wonderful. Her writing's wonderful. (-weeps-) As per the recommendations of the lovely people at the kakairu LJ community, I just might continue this, for real. Please leave a note if it was fine, or if you feel like it ought to be continued. (-bows-) 


	2. The immanence of water balloons

**MIDSUMMER  
ii: Breaking habits, and the immanence of water balloons**

- no spoilers, if you know the basic characters and their basic background stories. Naruto and all characters from the Naruverse belong to Kishimoto Masashi, whose crazy mind I wish I owned, effectively making the characters mine. Sadly, nothing here but several pets and my laptop.

- this contains implied yaoi, which means two guys paired up with each other. While there isn't any overt action, the implications are clear, and are intended, to make the story work. Please do us both a favor and NOT read if you're squeamish with this.

* * *

.

.These were for luck, the way  
you'd keep stray change in your pocket  
jingle-jangling--  
- Cathy Candano, "The Most Beautiful Boy I Touched Ran Away from Me"

* * *

It was late afternoon, and the lone child-figure was seated as still as the rock he perched on.

The view from the Niidaime's head at sunset played tricks on the eyes, if only for a few minutes before the sun dipped further below the peaks. At sunset, the village looked like it was on fire, as leaves and brightly-colored festive banners fluttered in the late afternoon breeze.

Below him, the village bustle slowed down in concert with the waning day. Genin teams began finishing up their assigned tasks, some sweeping the fairgrounds clean of litter, others erecting the final posts to new booths, testing props to see if they were indeed sturdy.

It had been three weeks since the recovery of the Wind Country's maps, maps which led to several hidden contingency bases scattered all over the country. It even revealed off-country bases, well-concealed safehouses in other regions and other countries, extending to as far North as Motawa Province in the Lighting Country, and as far East as Nagi Island near the Water Country.

The Kazekage certainly knew how to plan ahead.

Kakashi never really knew how extremely _vital_ the scrolls he carried home were. Granted, every item to be recovered in a mission is extremely important, but on the whole, the acquisition of the Kinryouku Project's main blueprints allowed Konoha to take careful measures in dealing with the latent threat.

It had been almost four weeks since he had returned, all the worse for wear, and still he was disallowed from participating in active field missions. They did not quite understand him when he argued that it was all just a matter of fatigue and dehydration. The pleasant blonde jounin in particular, curse the man, gently but firmly refused his reentry to the team.

"Not yet, Hatake-kun," he would say, blue eyes acquiring an authoritative sheen despite the benevolent smile.

He was allowed to go home though, five days after he had been admitted to the hospital. He was thankful to have missed the service for his team; he hadn't known the three nin well enough to attend their last rites, and showing up would only make it more awkward, especially since he was the only one who had accomplished the mission, the only one who made it through alive.

When he thought about it, he never really _knew_ any other nin long enough to want to attend their last rites. He had been assigned to so many teams since he had graduated from the Academy that he had begun to lose count. He had forgotten all the missions he had gone on, save the ones from whence he'd return home to a stern Sakumo-sama, silently sipping tea in the meditation room.

Now he sat, shaded by the looming head of the Sandaime jutting out from the rock wall beside him. Below him, street lanterns lit up like so many glowworms, and the fairgrounds emptied, ready for the Summer Solstice festival to be held in three days. He knew merely by smelling the air that the evening watch had taken its shift, felt it in his bones like the synchronous turn of cogs.

How many times had he been assigned guard watch? He did not keep track.

Yet here he sat, everyday since he was well enough to climb the steeping trail up the Niidaime, watching the far horizon for the gray messenger falcons his father liked using. Not being called for a mission made him restless, and he didn't know what else to do with his time. He certainly did _not_ want to train with anyone else.

Everyday he counted a dozen or so of the carrier birds that flew into the village, but none of them belonged to the White Fang. Everyday he would stand up, right when dusk cast its velveteen glow over the mountainside, and retrace his steps slowly back to the village, vigil for the day ended.

He would return to a quiet house, dark and unoccupied, and he would fix himself a meager dinner. After dinner it would be tea in the meditation room, where the row of eerie ANBU masks stared down at him from the wall, the red-faced tenggu one conspicuously missing in its peg.

Sometimes he sat in the rooftop, swinging his legs unconsciously (the only indication of his young age) as he mentally analyzed the weather patterns for the night. He would listen for the sound of birdcall, imaging it shattering the warm buzz of summer evening.

This he did like clockwork, without fail and without interruption, in the way he was taught by his father.

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He watched them as they played in the dusty yard of the Academy, screaming their childish joy for all the world to hear. The noontime sun was climbing the sky, and the children only had a few precious minutes left before recess was over.

"This is my jutsu! Kyaaa!"

They had drawn a line in sand across the yard, each claiming territory. Makeshift flags crudely whipped in the wind, cloth belts emblazoned in crayon with the crest of Konoha and the disproportionate picture of what looked to be an hourglass.

At first it had been a clean division. They all ducked behind shuriken posts and low training bars, throwing their weighty water balloons at their classmates from the other team who dared approach the marker.

But the thin line in the ground had since blown away with the wind, and the children, now "ronin", forgot their "posts" and pelted each and every one of their classmates as they could.

"You Mist ninja are no match for us! Take this!"

"Oi stop that! We're in the same team!"

"You're not a Mist ninja, you're a _Sand_ ninja, can't you tell?"

He found such play annoying, loud, and pointless.

_If they really wanted to be serious about it, they could have trained with actual blunt kunai instead, _ he thought. If indeed the point was to practice sniping, they should have kept their stealth, instead of screaming their attacks out loud. In the absence of a line marker, a good shinobi would have taken the initiative to divide his troops equally,

_"so that one may hold the fort while the rest may press forward and conquer. Do you understand, Kakashi?"_

They were very loud, in fact, that they had disrupted _his_ solitary training. Their gleeful shouts reverberated in the grove where he sparred with his clone, attempting to be faster than the bunshin (it was, he discovered, like attempting to be faster than one's own reflection).

"GET HIM! Get him, Iruka!"

"_This_ is my most powerful jutsu!"

He had followed their noise until he got to the edge of the yard, eyes narrowed in distaste as he surveyed the scene. This was a break from his schedule, _this_ was a disturbance, this was the worst form of undisciplined behavior unbecoming of shinobi.

_No wonder they all stay for such a long time in the Academy_, he thought disdainfully.

What annoyed him most was that he had been standing in his place for the past five minutes, assessing them with eyes too used to assessing the environment for the best position to kill.

Surely he wasn't _envious_.

Kakashi frowned.

_Stop that nonsense._

"Oi, Anko! Over here, over here! Throw _ these!_"

Someone dashed off to the watery battlefield with an armful of balloons, leaving the garden faucet running. Cold water gushed freely from the spout, its puddle a dark splotch on the dusty ground.

Kakashi sniffed in annoyance. Such _children_, these were.

_Playing around, wasting village resources when they could be training instead_.

He walked over to the faucet, and turned the tap off. He watched as the flow lessened to a couple of drops slipping along the lip of the faucet, joining the puddle on the ground. A thin streak slowly seeped into the dusty footpath.

"OI!"

He felt, rather than saw, the chakra-guided missile aim straight for the back of his head, and without turning, instinctively brought up a hand over his shoulder to stop its course. The soft, water-heavy projectile landed squarely in the middle of his palm, and he felt the liquid inside splish against the stretched skin of the balloon.

"Woah."

Kakashi only snorted in response, and made to walk away. If one's assailant was _amazed_ rather than furious at one's evasion of an attack, such an assailant was not worthy to be faced in combat.

"Hey, you Suna or Konoha?" his young attacker called out to him from behind. Kakashi smirked at the irony, paid it no heed, and continued on away from the grounds.

"Oi! That was a pretty cool catch though. What's your name?"

He turned, quite ready to let loose a scathing remark (chakra-propelled and more explosive than water) about wasting one's time and being a mediocre shinobi. The remark died in his tongue though, the moment he recognized the smiling, scarred little boy from the riverbank.

Who grinned all the wider at the perplexed look on his face. The boy drew closer, even as all Kakashi could do was stare at the beading water dripping from the other's damp ponytail.

"Hey, I don't remember seeing you around here. You must be in Daikoku-sensei's class. He teaches more than one, that I know of. Well, if you're not, at least be happy you're not in mine. Daikoku-sensei is nice and funny. Nara-sensei is one mean guy! He always calls me 'troublesome'. But I'm _not_ troublesome!" The boy made a face, before breaking into laughter.

Kakashi could only blink in a speechless mix of confusion and surprise.

"Anyway," the boy continued, "you _can't _ be Suna. You're too cool to be Suna! Definitely Konoha. Hey, you could be point man. Our point man's clumsy, and he keeps on getting hit. Oh! I almost forgot! Say do you—"

A gong sounded somewhere within the Academy building, signaling the end of recess. The wet playground fighters uttered a collective groan, tossing the last of their water balloons half-heartedly at each other.

"Awww cripes!" The scarred boy looked over his shoulder and grimaced. "That was barely what you could call recess!" He turned to Kakashi, eyes bright. "I have to go now. But I'll see you around, okay? Will I see you around? Good. Bye!"

And before Kakashi could even open his mouth to speak, the boy had run off to join the line of trudging, wet and bedraggled students, cutting himself off just as suddenly as he had spoken.

"Umino, did you start all of this, you troublesome kid?"

"I _did not_, Nara-sensei, Anko did!"

"Water balloons… it's got you written all over it!"

He watched them as they streamed into the hallway of the Academy, a buzzing, bustling lot, yelling uncontrollably about such trivial things as lousy homework and scraped knees and the amazing waterballoon-no-jutsu.

The last of them filed inside, leaving the practice yard like a long-forgotten battlefield: some ripped balloon skins strewn along the grass, the makeshift standards of both sides bereft of their crayon-smeared 'banners'. Soon their very annoyed Nara-sensei would make the class do clean-up after lessons.

The ground was still splotchy in some parts where a balloon burst its contents against an unsuspecting head. Soon it would evaporate in the summer heat, and there would be no trace of a water fight.

This part of the countryside would be quiet again; the world (_his_ world) could resume its placid turning, and he could return to his waiting bunshin in the grove, and he would train, as he always did, until the early bell rang in the mid-afternoon. Then he would take the trail up the Hokage Monument, and he would start his four-hour vigil.

And yet Kakashi stood, at the edge of the field that was quickly drying in the sun, in the aftermath of a friendly battle he had _never _partaken of, outside of his missions, outside of his intense assassination trainings.

He was thinking of the summer-eyed boy, who had not too long ago run away from him by the mouth of Catfish Bend. In his hand, heavy as the words he wanted to say, was the water balloon.

Kakashi didn't understand the giddiness that started to seep and spread inside him, as surely and as slowly as puddles on the dry ground. He did not understand, but he thought he liked it, although he could not quite explain why.

It was a bad thing, he remembered, if one could not explain what was going on in one's self. His bunshin, still and waiting in front of him, stared back with owlish eyes to remind him of that fact.

Suddenly aggravated at the watchful intrusion, he flipped a dagger-kunai at the clone, too quickly for the latter to block. It disappeared with a _bamph_, leaving him alone in the grove, two hours before the early bell was supposed to ring.

Later, Kakashi ate a light dinner and spent the night outdoors, staring at the object in his hands as if, by doing so, it would explain something, as if it would speak in the scarred boy's bright voice.

After some time he reluctantly put it away, tucked carefully in the second level of his small scroll shelf, like a charm.

He did not have tea that night.

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It was the strangest, most vivid dream he'd cared to remember. Of course, he had flashbacks after particular missions, it was quite normal: strangling the Suna kid after Operation Kinryouku; catching the off-village thief in the second round of night watch; receiving summons from the Sandaime himself; his father's look of approval after he mastered a technique.

He never dreamt of things that didn't make sense. To an extent, his inborn discipline _forbade _him to. Didn't his father teach him to reason all things out?

Yet he stood, under the heat of the sun, guarding a training bar strung across with ripe water balloons. Not a cloud dotted the sky, and from time to time, bird-headed jounin would circle overhead, waiting for a chance to take one of the water-heavy things.

His clone stood at attention nearby, repeating the names of his father's falcons in a sharp monotone, doing nothing to fend off the jounin-birds.

Across the field, he thought he saw the scarred boy running from the Academy entrance, shouting excitedly and waving for him to come. Under one arm was a basket (in the impossible way dreams always had, he _knew_ the boy was there to gather the ripening water balloons), and his scroll pouch bounced against his hip.

Kakashi strained to listen to what the boy said, but the cacophony of the birds screeching in the sky and his clone's dull, incessant recitation drowned out the words.

He opened his eyes and realized that it was morning, the sun was shining through the slats in his room, and that he had been asleep far longer than he should have.

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He found himself standing inside the lobby of the Academy the same time the next day. He had been standing stiffly against the doorway, ignoring the nervous looks the chuunin receptionist cast his way.

Above him, through the thin wooden floor panels, he could hear the faintest chorus of children's voices repeating the names of several very basic jutsu. He had listened intently, wondering if he could make out the scarred boy's voice, _if _the scarred boy was there. Perhaps he was in another classroom down the hall; perhaps they had gone out for the day, as outdoor sessions were common especially if the weather was good.

But then _why_ was he listening for the scarred boy again?

He listened intently. Annoyance would flash through his face the moment something rustled, or trudging steps dragged through the floor, or when a passing teacher sneezed. He glared at several schoolchildren who ran down the hallway, recognizing several as his ex-classmates.

"Stop that nonsense," he growled under his breath.

He made the chuunin receptionist very, very nervous.

The blonde jounin knew this the moment he descended the stairs, and laughingly patted the poor man on the back before walking towards Kakashi.

"They're learning the properties of basic jutsu," he said softly, smiling amusedly as the boy started, and quickly, stiffly, bowed. "How 'henge' is different from 'kawarimi', for example. Daikoku-sensei is making them say it out loud."

There was a twinkle in the blue eyes that told Kakashi the older man probably knew what he was thinking. He quickly looked down, resenting the heat that surfaced in his face. "Indeed. They should spend more time doing the seals."

The blonde jounin hid a smile. "Of course, Hatake-kun. And thank you for coming, by the way." He carefully handed over a stuffed file folder with an apologetic look. "Unfinished paperwork regarding your mission. It's been processed by the Hunter Nin who found your team, the medic team examining their wounds, and the intelligence team who gave out the mission."

He looked up then, embarrassment forgotten. "So I, surviving member of the team, ought to finish the details." He nodded curtly, receiving the folder, and briefly looked through the pages.

"I must tell you, jounin-sensei, I only knew them in the context of the mission."

"Understood, Hatake-kun. But that is all in order."

Across the room, the chuunin receptionist watched in amazement as the child, younger than most graduates of the Academy, critically eyed the information sheet that only chuunin-level shinobi (like himself) handled. Most of the children _his_ age waded through basic textbooks.

"When do you need it, jounin-sensei?" he asked, not looking up. He vaguely resented the other man for seemingly guessing right through him.

The blonde jounin didn't seem to mind. "Whenever you can, Hatake-kun, whenever you can."

"Tomorrow then, jounin-sensei," came the brusque response.

At that, the jounin laughed out loud. "Oh no, no Hatake-kun. There is no rush. How about…after the festival? After the Summer Solstice festival? How's that?"

For the life of him, he could not understand why the blonde jounin wanted to prolong such simple, tedious work. However something in the back of his head agreed to this, as if it were a foretelling, and he found himself nodding and saying yes.

"Good. Please just drop it over at the Mission Desk in the afternoons, Hatake-kun. Nara-sensei will receive them for me."

He didn't like the blonde jounin's amused, knowing look. So he tucked the folder under his arm, bowed formally as was fitting his rank, and turned to go.

Upstairs in the second floor, in the classroom down the hallway, the scarred little boy sitting in the front row sneezed violently several times, and his teacher took the opportunity to scold him for playing water games in the hottest time of the day, and not even bringing a spare shirt.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

(1) Kinryouku literally means "reserve" as in animal reserve and such. I had the strange, crazy image of raccoons hiding in the hollows of a thick Konoha tree trunk. Rabid things. Homicidal rabid things.

(2) Cameo/ mention of Mitarashi Anko. This one will go a tad bit slow, but then I intend to dwell on the situations and let the plot move at its own pace. Screw it, Kishimoto-sensei, give Yondy a _name_ already!

(3) Several people recommended I keep _Midsummer_ a oneshot; several more suggested I continue it. I've found some sort of compromise, which works very well with me. I shall write each chapter as a oneshot; to that extent, one may read this, and the succeeding chapters (my muse be blessed ) as a series of oneshots dealing with the common theme of KakaIru and summer. Yet the fact that they are under the same title implies their being connectivity as chapters nonetheless, and I've made it so that each chapter more or less alludes to an event in a previous chapter. So it's a not-so-oneshot(s)-sort-of-chaptered story. I'll need Ebisu to make a chart out of this...

Inspired by the imagery of Cathy Candano's poem, "The Most Beautiful Boy...", published in the school folio, No.1 vol. 52, pgs 7-8. Once again, comments, suggestions, and thoughts are very welcome. Please leave a note if this was okay.


	3. Intrusions

**MIDSUMMER  
iii: Intrusions (rain, routine, and the like)  
**_in which Kakashi wonders about the weather, and the concept of 'friends'. _

- slight spoilers, so to be safe, I recommend you read up until the Gaiden at least, though I certainly won't _deliberately_ spoil it for you. Naruto and all characters from the Naruverse belong to Kishimoto Masashi, whose crazy mind I wish I owned, effectively making the characters mine. Sadly, nothing here but several pets and my laptop.

- this contains implied yaoi, which means two guys paired up with each other. While there isn't any overt action, the implications are clear, and are intended, to make the story work. Please do us both a favor and NOT read if you're squeamish with this.

* * *

.

.Once in a while  
you remember that yesterday,  
before anything actually happened,  
you still had a place in the world,  
- Cathy Candano, "The Most Beautiful Boy I Touched Ran Away from Me"

* * *

Kakashi woke up to the smell of rain, and the stickiness in the air that foretold its approach.

Summer rains were generally unpredictable; arriving at the last minute with only a gust of wind as warning, or a very brief interval of heavy humidity. Like a well-trained jounin, it disguised its water-heavy clouds behind brilliant sunlight, and left only the faintest scent of its arrival in the air.

His father had taught him to read weather patterns. The White Fang was the most excellent tracker in the country, possibly in the entire region. The man knew when a drought was coming, as if he could read it in the patterns the loose earth made across the rice fields; he listened for the sound of snowfall, in the early autumnal mornings, and taught his son to do the same.

He taught Kakashi how to read past the stealth of summer rain, as if it were a natural genjutsu that needed to be unraveled. He taught Kakashi how to weigh the air that brushed his face, carrying its most telling sign.

As he rose to regard the deceitfully bright morning, he automatically thought about planning his day, as he always did—meditation, breakfast, training, a bit of community service (the fields were being turned for planting), his daily vigil.

His eyes wandered to the water balloon on the shelf, still in its perch, and automatically he thought of the summer-eyed boy.

In the two times he'd met the boy, the latter had regarded him with a look akin to awe—strangely enough while he had looks like that directed at him by other people (his father's team, chuunin all, three times his age), it left him with a warmth he only got when his father gave him an approving nod, or when the Hokage in the few times he got to meet the older nin, looked at him levelly.

"Nonsense," he muttered to himself hotly, as he stalked towards the meditation room, ready to start the day. "You do not even know who he is, Kakashi. Friends are troublesome."

_But I am _not_ troublesome_, the boy insisted in his head.

Kakashi chose to ignore it. Such thoughts, he decided, were useless, and did not make a shinobi strong.

_You could be point man_, the boy had said. The thought of him persisted, walked alongside Kakashi and followed him from the room. _You're too cool to be Suna. You're definitely Konoha._

Kakashi stopped at the doorway of the meditation room, and turned to glare at the empty space behind him. From across the narrow corridor of the house, and through the open door of his room, he stared suspiciously at the water balloon as if its very presence foretold _ something._

_What's your name?_

His clone waited for him in the meditation room, standing in attention.

He always put a clone on guard around the house and the backyard when he was alone. It was a simple clone, whose main prerogative was to protect the immediate area, to act as its sentry, and to wake its caster should something important happen.

He brushed off the strange feeling of dejavu brought about by the dream of two nights past, and listened to it report about its night shift. It did so in the sharp monotone he could never quite associate with himself.

"Two neighborhood dogs chased each other three hours before dawn. One night sentry passed the area a short while later. Acknowledged her. Returning messenger team stopped three blocks away to fix wounded member's bandages. One of them looked like a Hyuuga, as he saw me right through the fence. Acknowledged him."

He let the clone's spiel run in through his head like he always did, while he performed the various breathing exercises that strengthened sleep-sluggish nerves, invigorated blood and chakra.

"Wind changes direction every hour or so. Predictably a small depression coming from the West."

Nothing out of the ordinary. Friction must be building in the front, what with messenger teams, which rarely saw fighting, getting hurt. The clone ran through its report without pausing once.

It finished at length, and remained silent, as if waiting.

Kakashi opened his eyes and looked at it questioningly, eyebrow raised. The clone usually disappeared after it had delivered its report, feeding back the chakra it left unused.

It stared at him openly now, pale hair wild with morning static, eyes wide with a repressed glee Kakashi could not quite name. A smile, or a ghost of it, wrinkled the cloth of the facemask.

"Yes?" Kakashi ventured, feeling at once ridiculous and amused at questioning a _clone_, as if it had an _ opinion_.

The ghost-smile widened. "He is not troublesome," it murmured quietly with a knowing look. Before its caster could respond, or banish it in a single irritated move, it inclined its head slightly before stepping back once, and disappeared in a soft clap of smoke.

Kakashi was left alone in the meditation room, the silence of the humidity-choked morning resounding in his ears. The clone did _not_ know what it was talking about, he thought; it was most likely simply an error in casting, a clumsy segregation of chakra.

_I am getting complacent. Sakumo-sama will be displeased to know I spent my 'free time' lounging about._

So saying he stepped out into the yard, out into the deceiving brightness of the day, suspiciously scanning the sky for rain. He was to meet with the blonde jounin in the afternoon, but until then, he had time to kill.

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He sparred with his double twice as vigorously as he was used to, mainly to let off his agitation. He had killed his shadow clone twice in the past three hours, both by strangling. It was a disconcerting moment when, just before the second one dissipated in his hands, he thought it flashed him the same frightened look of the unfortunate Suna child.

Vexed by both the very telling clamminess in the air (it had increased as the sun climbed the sky) and by his clones' rather erratic behavior, he decided to forego sparring for the moment and devote the rest of the morning to chakra exercises instead.

_Unforgivable, Kakashi_, he berated himself in his father's words. _Undisciplined chakra allocation…what is the difference between you and the newly-made genin now?_

So saying he walked toward the creek that ran through the bamboo grove, gathered a set amount of chakra to his feet, and carefully stepped onto the surface of the water. He felt it lap against the soles of his sandals, and placidly, he moved across the creek, careful not to wet his toes. He made it a personal challenge, as he hated getting his feet damp.

A disturbance further down caused him to turn his head and squint in the general direction.

Sitting forlornly on the bank, knees gathered to him in a gesture of defeat, sat his summer-eyed boy, glaring at nothing and tossing pebbles angrily onto the water.

It was such an unexpected sight, and one that affected him very strongly. He lost his balance for a quick moment, and a foot sank ankle-deep into the cold water. Irritated, he quickly pulled it back up, and prepared to leap away.

It was enough to startle the boy from whatever angry reverie he caught himself in, and he turned sharply in Kakashi's direction, throwing hand armed with a river pebble.

He found himself immobile, stunned, as if caught red-handed by an accidentally-awakened sentry, in the thick of enemy territory.

"What are _you _staring at?"

The boy glared at him hotly, and when he noticed the forehead protector and the fact that Kakashi was standing _ on_ the water, on the murkier part of the creek, his scowl deepened. Grimacing warily, the boy resumed his dejected slump, ignoring him completely.

Kakashi relaxed. _He does not remember you, apparently_, he thought, and wondered why there was a very, very faint tinge of something akin to disappointment seeping into him.

Irritated, he brushed it off, but despite himself, walked towards the boy's direction. The river water splashed freely into his sandals now, and each step aggravated the disappointment to an unreasonable notch, so that, when he finally stopped in front of the boy, he was fairly simmering in indignation.

_But I'll see you around, okay?_

"What are you doing here."

It probably came out sharper than he had expected, as all he wanted to do was ask. The boy looked up, brown eyes flashing, lips pursed.

"What do you _want_, huh? I bet Nara-sensei sent you. I bet you're one of the Genin-Baka who like hanging around the playground. Well you may bully kids like Mizuki and younger kids like Gekkou-kun, but you can't pick on me!"

So saying, the boy stood up, clumsily falling into a basic taijutsu stance. Kakashi followed the amateurish movement with trained eyes, automatically calculating several angles from which to disable the boy.

There was silence, and for Kakashi, a moment of tension so thick that one might have stepped on it.

The boy's face twitched once, twice, before he relaxed. Sticking a tongue out, he sat back down again, and ignored the utterly perplexed chuunin standing on the water's edge.

"I'm just taking a break anyway. I'm not lost. If Nara-sensei sent you tell him I'll be back later, but I'll definitely prove to him that I can do it. I'm going to win our bet, and I'm going to go to the festival." The boy continued tossing pebbles half-heartedly into the water.

Kakashi frowned. The boy was not making any sense at all. At first he had assumed that the boy's class had been out on their first practical tracking exam; it was common for children to be separated from their teams, and the more reckless ones lost in the unfamiliar parts of the bamboo forest. He once had a D-rank mission with two other older Genin to shepherd lost Academy students back on their major exam.

But he was "not lost", so Kakashi assumed the boy was here for some other reason.

"Didn't Nara-sensei send you?" the boy asked in annoyance, just before Kakashi could open his mouth to speak. "He probably didn't. That big grouchy meanie doesn't _believe _I can do it! That's why!" The boy chewed on his lip in resentment. "'Umino you are troublesome', he would say. Well I am NOT troublesome!"

_He is not troublesome_ echoed in Kakashi's ears and for a strange moment he remembered his clone's small smile.

"'It'—" he began, but was cut off again.

"'It', you know, Henge? Sheesh." The boy suddenly sat up straighter, now that he had an audience. "I _didn't_ know he planned for a pop quiz, I would have _studied_, honest, but he pulled a fast one on us, and I was caught off-guard."

_That's _why_ it's called a 'pop quiz', silly, _thought Kakashi, and while a more logical part of his mind insisted on leaving this sorry, mediocre boy to his lot, he found himself stepping out of the water, and sitting a few feet away from the boy.

"Anyway. Yuugao-chan was sooooo good at it. She turned into a raccoon, and she even made raccoon noises, and it really _worked_. Mizuki wasn't so good, because his weasel had blue fur—he has blue hair, you know, and weasels don't have blue fur."

It was probably the weather, Kakashi thought. It made him lightheaded. The boy's chatter was bright, and each word sounded like sparks going off in their animated inflections. He had the sudden image of water balloons bursting into color and spilling random hiragana against the ground.

_And I bet you sucked at your turn,_ he thought, chuckling lightly. He blinked when the boy beside him glared furiously.

"NO, it was just a SMALL mistake, and Nara-sensei hates me so he noticed it straightaway, but I DO NOT SUCK."

Had he said that aloud? Kakashi bit his lip and considered pulling his facemask up in embarrassed amusement.

The boy was silent again, visibly sulking. He probably spent most of his chakra in numerous failed attempts, and was now resting to replenish it. A quick glance around revealed that the boy had eaten quite a bit too; an empty bento carelessly tied up in cloth was stashed by a cluster of rocks.

How hard was henge anyway? For him, it was almost as easy as doing a headstand, which he doubted the younger boy could do as well. The most basic henge turned one into an immobile, unconscious object; a few levels higher taught one to turn into other people, but it required careful observation on the caster's part. The more difficult henge was one that was cast onto someone else; there would be chakra transfer, and the caster had to hold the image of both the thing he wished to morph, and the thing he wished the other to morph _into_.

_Hatake, hold the illusion until you reach the village. We will follow you shortly, but you must go NOW._

He could not quite find the proper words to say it, because he did not want to sound obliging. Sakumo-sama had taught him to observe things keenly, so much so that he was able to transform into something he had seen only once or twice.

Wordlessly, he stood, and when the boy instinctively turned to his direction, he cast a henge—one that came with an unusual ease and naturalness that surprised him.

The boy shot to his feet in excitement, eyes wide, amazement fairly written all over his face. His mouth hung open and he approached, and quite suddenly, too unexpectedly for Kakashi, the boy's hands were on his face.

"You look just like me!"

Small boy-fingers swiped awkwardly across his nose, patting his cheek heavily, tugged at his hair. Nobody touched him so casually before, not even his own father, and truth to tell, he disliked being touched. Annoyed, he batted them away, but the boy continued to gawk.

"How… how did you turn… wow, that's so COOL!"

_All you have to do is concentrate on the thing you're to turn into,_ Kakashi thought, uneasy with the boy's rapt attention on his new form. No doubt it was an amusing thing, the first time someone else henge'd into one's own features.

He thought of the Suna child, and wondered if that was what made the boy seem so surprised.

But the scarred boy was now grinning his familiar grin, seemingly charging the air around him as well. "You _have_ to teach me how to do it," he pleaded, tugging at Kakashi's arm. "If I can prove to Nara-sensei that I can do a Second Level henge, even without him discussing it, he's gonna let me off remedial classes and he's going to let me join the festival!"

To say "no" was something he was taught to do at an early age, something which made older teammates respect him. Sakumo-sama had taught him conviction, and to this he was firm, refusing to do something that he didn't need to.

_ I'm just helping him_, Kakashi said to himself firmly. _It's got nothing to do whether or not I want to help him. I'm just bored. And I'm just killing time before jounin-sensei and I are supposed to meet._

"Thanks!" the scarred boy exclaimed, and Kakashi wondered if he had said it aloud again. "I could turn into you. You turned into me and I never thought I looked so serious." He frowned, mimicking Kakashi's stoic expression, but could not hold it, and burst out laughing instead. "But I think I can turn into you. Teach me?"

It wasn't even a question, Kakashi realized, when he thought it over that night, in the still and uneasy silence of his room. It wasn't even a question because it was something he had decided on the very moment he chose to approach the boy.

They spent the entire muggy afternoon practicing henge, and conversely, Kakashi learned many things. He learned how the boy's teacher, one Nara-sensei, was the strictest teacher in the faculty, given charge over the most rambunctious children accepted into the Academy. He learned how the boy liked wandering off on his own in the forest, especially when his parents (both active nin, he presumed) were out. He learned how the boy loved getting "reward visits" to Lodge Town's hot spring whenever he got a good grade.

"It's different, see. Lodge Spring kinda smells a little salty, and for some reason I like how the water smells like that. Father says in the Mist Country, there are springs far larger than anything at Lodge Town, and that those smell salty too."

He also learned, as the afternoon drew on, that he had not been this relaxed in a long time, and that it was terribly amusing to watch the boy try, so much so that he snickered at one time or another. The prickling sensation he had known yesterday at the playgrounds spread, and he was strangely giddy, and very, very amused.

_You are only getting complacent, Kakashi_, he scolded himself in his father's words. _Compared to what you usually do, you are _playing_ needlessly with this boy._

The boy had a terrible patience, and at first refused to continue after three very poor attempts at transforming into his companion. The boy yelled, sulked, kicked stones into the water—all in all, Kakashi thought, very childish behavior.

He frowned then, when this happened, and prepared to walk away, but the boy always seemed to get back on track. He bit his lip and in furious but determined silence, he copied Kakashi's (albeit slightly advanced) hand seals, transforming into a mirror image a little more accurate than the last.

The boy was a quick learner though. By the time the sun was starting to set Kakashi found himself in a very surreal situation of watching his almost-mirror self (since the other-Kakashi still had the scar across the nose, and eyes of the wrong color) blinking back at him a few feet away.

"Well?" it asked, face twitching to keep from smiling.

"I don't have a scar on my face," he replied, "and one eye is of a strange color." The genjutsu was pretty good, however, and he had to commend the child for noticing the very subtle differences between their heights.

"YESS!" the boy screamed happily, and his hold on the jutsu snapped. "I was working hard on fixing the hair, you know. You have such strange hair. At least it's nice and white now," he tugged at his head, "that's why I forgot to pay attention to the nose and the eyes. But that's fine, the big part is over, and—eh? Where are you going?"

The boy had looked up, and looked around, and wondered why he was all alone by the riverbank. Even as he picked up his bento to return to the Academy, all he could think of was the strange, serious boy who had helped him without a word uttered. 

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"Hatake-kun, what pleasant timing you have!"

He was approaching the school grounds, when the pleasant blonde jounin emerged right out of one of the street corners. Kakashi concealed his surprise, but it shocked him slightly, as he didn't even notice the older man's presence.

_Focus, Kakashi, FOCUS._

"You scared me, appearing right there and then," the blonde jounin chuckled, ignoring Kakashi's very quick surprised glance. "But I was just thinking about sending a messenger bird to summon you. I assumed you were probably practicing again today."

"Quite alright, jounin-sensei," Kakashi replied formally. "I was just finishing up, in any case."

The blonde jounin nodded. "Still no word from Sakumo-san? It's been unusually long. Please don't misunderstand, Hatake-kun, but I was just wondering out loud, and it's not like Sakumo-san to delay in his missions this long."

_So they've noticed too_, he thought, but kept the observation to himself. "None yet, sensei, but I'm sure Sakumo-sama and his team have merely run into some…inconvenience."

The jounin nodded thoughtfully as they entered the lobby of the school. "True, true. And I wouldn't be surprised if they got 'caught in the rain', so to speak. The weather is starting to get a little cheeky nowadays, and I hear there's a depression from the northwest."

They stopped outside the Mission Room, and the blonde jounin let him wait by the doorway for a bit. While waiting, Kakashi noticed that everyone in the room stole glances at him, discreet as they would have been.

The blonde jounin returned with several scrolls in hand. Kakashi looked at them and raised an eyebrow quizzically. The jounin grinned, fox-like, and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"I apologize for this, Hatake-kun, and I'm aware that it is immensely impolite, just as it is rather sudden." His face grew serious then. "These are mission briefs for three simultaneous S-ranked missions to be commenced one right after the other."

"For Sakumo-sama, correct." Kakashi nodded in understanding and took them from the jounin, holding them by the thick scroll rope that tied them together. "I shall be sure to give them to him the moment he arrives."

While it annoyed Kakashi to have the higher-ups decide on his father's succeeding missions even when he had not come back safely from the one he was accomplishing, he knew it was a necessity. One became strong for the village after all, and the stronger one was, the harder and more frequent one's missions got.

_You must understand this, Kakashi. It is one way of proving yourself to the eyes of the village. It is one way to be acknowledged._

Perhaps the blonde jounin understood this, because his face softened up into an expression akin to sadness. "Thank you, Hatake-kun," he said.

They walked down the hallway in silence, and just as they were about to walk down the stairs, a loud, familiar voice issuing out of the classroom caught both their attentions.

"Why, it's rather late to have classes now," the blonde jounin wondered aloud. "I wonder who it could possibly—oh good afternoon, Nara-sensei."

It was an empty classroom, and the desks were pushed to one side. A gruff, frowning teacher stood leaning against the blackboard, beady eyes staring hard at a boy standing in the middle of the room.

"You just won't believe me, sensei! I _wasn't _slacking off all day, I was—"

"Good afternoon to you too, sensei." The man managed a brief, stiff grin and rubbed the tip of his nose. "Please, don't mind us, I'm just reprimanding this troublesome, slacker student of mine. I hope we weren't a bother."

"I'm NOT a troublesome—" the boy yelled and turned around, anger dissipating at the sight of the similarly surprised Kakashi. "—slacker." Quicker than a flash, brown eyes lit up with a friendly cheer. "Hello," he called, waving a hand.

"Be quiet, Umino, you're very disrespectful," Nara-sensei hit the boy over the head with the back of his clipboard and the boy winced. Kakashi wondered where the urge to hit the beady-eyed man with a water balloon came from, and smothered it whole.

"Nothing doing," replied the blonde jounin, chuckling. "Just passing by. We were—"

"See here, Nara-sensei, sempai will agree with me." The boy stood, glaring at his teacher, and casting meaningful looks at Kakashi. "I can prove to you that I don't need remedial classes, and that I can do a proper henge."

Nara-sensei reddened, prepared to knock the boy over the head again. "Umino…"

"Well now, henge!" The blonde jounin looked amused. "It's very important that you learn how to do a henge, young man. I've been to very dangerous missions myself, and a simple henge-no-jutsu, done well, saved my life more than once."

A sly look crossed Nara-sensei's face and he leaned back against a table. "Since you're so keen on embarrassing yourself, Umino, you go on ahead. Sensei here is an important shinobi in our village,so I'll have him choose what form you'll turn into." He smirked at the boy's horrified look. "Go ahead, sensei. Please choose _any_ form for Umino to change into."

"Everyone's an important shinobi, Nara-sensei," the blonde jounin replied, grinning his fox-grin again. "Thank you for the honor. Hmmm—" he pretended to mull over it for a bit.

Kakashi did not want to see how the boy would fail miserably in such an easy exercise, such a basic shinobi drill. He did not like to imagine the triumphant look of the beady-eyed teacher, and quietly tugged on the blonde jounin's vest as a signal to leave.

The latter turned bright blue eyes down in his direction, twinkling in an amused epiphany. He winked knowingly before he turned to the pair inside the classroom.

"Why don't you turn into my student over here?" the blonde jounin asked, casually laying a hand on Kakashi's head.

Nara-sensei gave a short bark of laughter, gleefully acknowledging the challenge. "Let's see if you can redeem yourself, Umino, you slacker. If you fail this one, you're definitely going to stay over for remedial." And so saying he settled himself on a chair eager to mete out punishment.

"Go on, Umino-kun," the blonde jounin prompted the boy gently, and Kakashi had the distinct feeling that the older man _knew_—perhaps it was the strange way the latter winked briefly as if warning him to keep silent about something.

He found himself being stared at by a pair of very intent brown eyes. There was a clarity there that seemed to spread outward, beyond the small room and further outward still, to the trees and to the village itself. The whole afternoon condensed in that solemn look.

There was a pop, a shrill cry of "Henge!" and Kakashi blinked to see a clone of himself standing not too far away. It grinned.

"I'm not troublesome, sensei."

It was disconcerting to see his mirror-image—_hear_ his mirror image speak in his own voice. He remembered his clone in the early morning report, and a shiver ran down his back.

It was, contrary to the practice sessions earlier that day, a perfect imitation; and he found himself closing the small distance between them, reaching out a gloved hand to run them lightly over equally pale, equally serious looking features.

"Hey, it's like you've never seen a henge before," he heard the boy (in his mirror-image) say amusedly, obviously reiterating what he had said earlier. As if burnt, Kakashi withdrew his hands and quickly stepped backward.

Even Nara-sensei seemed pleased with what the boy had accomplished. His face a mask of astonishment and cynicism, he carefully walked around the boy, intent in his scrutiny.

The blonde jounin clapped his hands lightly, chuckling all the while. "Well-done indeed, Umino-kun!" he said. "Why, I don't suppose I can tell you apart from Hatake-kun so easily."

The mirror-Kakashi turned his head and beamed proudly. "Really?" he asked, eyes widening uncharacteristically.

"There must be a catch to this," his teacher protested, still searching for errors in the jutsu.

"Come now, Nara-sensei," the blonde jounin chided, "perhaps Umino-kun deserves a measure of praise. He must have worked all afternoon to perfect this jutsu. Didn't you, Umino-kun?"

"Un!" the boy nodded his head enthusiastically, and Kakashi had the strange urge to follow suit. The boy then looked up hopefully at his teacher, the eagerness of attending a festival dancing in his eyes.

"Well, alrigh—" Nara-sensei conceded, but was quickly drowned out by an excited yell. The jutsu popped, and the boy once more stood in front of them. "You better be thanking sensei over here."

"Thank you very much, sensei," the boy replied, bowing low towards their direction.

"We'll be off now, Nara-sensei, Umino-kun," the blonde jounin said, giving an acknowledging nod. Kakashi found himself gently wheeled toward the hallway, down the flight of stairs. The scrolls in his hand were a strange, dead weight.

It had rained, finally. Torrents of it poured down like a finely-spun curtain of water. Muffled thunder resounded overhead, and a chill breeze wafted in through the open windows. Two chuunin staff hastily fastened the larger awnings shut, to keep out the rain that slanted in the wind. It flicked off the sill, lightly splattering Kakashi's face. The blonde jounin eyed the sky and clucked his tongue lightly.

"Well, it seems I must get wet," he sighed in mock resignation. Turning to Kakashi, he lay a hand on the boy's shoulder in a gesture of apology. "I'm sorry we had to delay back there. I really do pity the boy, and Nara-sensei can tend to be too strict with his rules sometimes. But wasn't that interesting though?"

Kakashi found some sense to sniff weakly in disdain. "It's just henge," he muttered, hoping the lilt in his voice wasn't apparent.

If the blonde jounin heard it, he certainly did not show it. instead, the older man nodded. "I'm sorry. It's just that I do miss teaching. Perhaps when the time comes Sandaime-sama will allow me to have a team of my own. Well then. I shall be off. Please don't forget to give these to your father, Hatake-kun."

With a slight nod, he was off, dashing through the rain, blonde head visible in the mist. Kakashi was left wondering whether to wait out the rain, or to borrow an umbrella. He was just about ready to make a run for it when a small hand tapped him from behind.

"Thanks for that thing back there," a small voice intruded, and he turned to see the boy again. It was strange how watching the other's face, suffused with laughter rippling under its surface, stirred an unfamiliar warmth in his stomach. He had no words, so he shrugged instead.

"No, really," the boy went on, and the fading light made his features glow strangely. He reached into his pocket and took out a very crumpled stub, and this he handed out to Kakashi with a grin.

"Here," he said. "Because you're my friend and because you're really, really cool, I'm giving you this." At Kakashi's blank look, the boy pouted.

"It's a _pass_, silly! The festival's later tonight, ne? It's a free pass so we don't have to pay, they're making people who enter pay, which is silly because you're supposed to have _ fun_ at a festival, not _pay_ for it and stuff. You don't want it, I can take it back."

Nonetheless the boy pressed the stub into Kakashi's palm. He looked up questioningly. Wasn't he supposed to be home, meditating, preparing the scrolls and sharpening his father's blades in preparation for whatever mission the blonde jounin gave him?

"I'm going?" was all he could ask.

The boy just rolled his eyes as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Yes of _course,_ duh, you're going. You've got a pass, right?"

_I beg your pardon but I never _asked_ for it_, a voice in his head retorted, miffed.

"Besides," the boy continued, squinting at the rain, "it's gonna be boring and stuff. Yuugao-chan and Mizuki are all going with their clans and I don't have a clan as big as theirs and all. I don't think dad 'n mum'll be back soon, because they said something about 'smoking out raccoons' and I don't think we have smoking raccoons in Konoha, so I figured they'd be off to a far place."

A sad smile creased the boy's face even as Kakashi quizzically tried to make sense out of the boy's rambling.

He thought about his evening, all planned out. He thought about tea, and a light dinner of miso soup and fish with tofu, and he thought about volunteering for guard watch. He thought about laying down the mission scrolls in his father's room, and the weapons casket which he intended to prepare.

He thought about an empty house. Then he thought of the festival, probably ruined by the rain, but filled with people nonetheless, families celebrating parents home from the front, children passing quarterly exams.

"Do you think raccoons smoke?"

Slowly, his hand closed around the stub, and carefully tucked it in his pocket. It would be the second evening he would be overstepping his self-imposed routine, and it did not bother him one bit. Conversely, it bothered him to think that he was not bothered by the fact that he was doing something impulsive.

Outside, the rain had slowed down to a shower, and it settled to a comfortable rhythm that drummed lightly against the silence that now settled between Kakashi and the boy.

In his head, he could see his clone smile knowingly.

"Well, that's ironic," he muttered finally, startling the boy beside him. "Having a summer festival in the rain."

"Huh?" It was the boy's turn to give him a confused look, but at this point, Kakashi was quite decided. He turned his face to feel the air, to sniff the patterns of the weather, and it told him what he wanted to know.

"I'll bet you," he began, and bit his lip to keep from grinning. "We meet an hour after twilight watch at the bridge. If it continues to rain until then, you go alone. There's no sense for me to go to a festival in the rain."

The boy pursed his lips, challenged. "Fine. But if it stops raining, you get to come with me, and you get to uhhhhm, say buy me something. Because you lost. I can't think yet, but you have to buy me something. okay?"

"Okay." And so saying he tucked the scrolls under his shirt, and dashed outside, chakra making his feet barely touch the ground. In the haze of rain and wind, he ducked to hide a smile.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

It's been an awfully long time, and I do admit I lagged a bit when I was writing this. I suppose it's what they all call "Real Life" and I've finally come to believe that it too, comes for those who refuse to have anything to do with it whatsoever. There's a slight change in tone and progression, and I suppose it's due to the fact that the classroom scene was a bit sticky, but somehow I had to pull them out of it. :sweat: I think I'll swerve away for a teeny tiny while from the image of Ko!Iruka running away from Bloodied!Kakashi, but it's so that I can give the latter some sort of 'growth' (pathetic as that may sound --)

(1) I would imagine Kakashi, cautious child-genius that he is, would rest yet keep a bunshin to patrol the house. Similarly, I would imagine bunshin to be "pre-programmed" for lack of a better term, infused with chakra enough to accomplish the duties it was made for--in which case, Kakashi's would be a simple patrol bunshin, which would alert its caster in the event of an engagement.

(2) Thanks to midnightdiddle (on LJ) for reassuring me re Yondy's lack of a True Name. The way you put it dear, made me want to add one more angle to the story. Also to Clueless, for the lovely art. A major motivation, that.

(3) Nara-sensei! Before he got married. :3 "Kids are troublesome," he would say. Of course Iruka would be the most troublesome of them all.

Inspired by the imagery of Cathy Candano's poem, "The Most Beautiful Boy...", published in the school folio, No.1 vol. 52, pgs 7-8. She's wonderful. Her writing's wonderful. (-weeps-) As per the recommendations of the lovely people at the kakairu LJ community, I just might continue this, for real. Please leave a note if it was fine, or if you feel like it ought to be continued. (-bows-)


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